I love Basic. Like most languages, it just got better and better over time. I think the thing I love most about it is how merely mentioning it somewhere always allows you to pick out the clueless people who feel a need to share with the world how terrible it is and mention outdated Edsger Dijkstra quotes.

I love Basic. Like most languages, it just got better and better over time. I think the thing I love most about it is how merely mentioning it somewhere always allows you to pick out the clueless people who feel a need to share with the world how terrible it is and mention outdated Edsger Dijkstra quotes.

Indeed.

I usually find that the language is only as bad as the programmer using it.

@"The teaching of BASIC should be rated as a criminal offence: it mutilates the mind beyond recovery." --Dijkstra

Of course Dijkstra was being deliberately contrary at the time, largely to make a point about the need to learn program structure. And of course BASIC back then was a wholly different beast from even a vaguely modern version.

@AndyC: I remember Commodore 64 BASIC didn't have WHILE-loops, functions or procedures. And programming with line-numbers is quite different. Yet, I didn't complain, because I didn't know any better. I think complaining comes with age. And the cynical nature of the current IT culture also doesn't help.

The reason I haven't been very active on C9 (or my blog) is that I'm a bit fed up with the entire IT culture, the little fights, the cynicism, the different camps (or should I say tribes), the egos, …

It has taken the fun out of programming for me. My hobby projects are rusting on my hard drive, my desire and drive to create is currently on hold. I try to find my happiness elsewhere now, I've just started my second year learning Italian, and my second cooking course (this time Italian cuisine). I still follow all the trends, still read the blogs, and the twitter-sphere. But I stopped caring or taking sides, it's just not worth it anymore.

PerfectPhase"This is not war, this is pest control!" - Dalek to Cyberman

@Bass: Which just goes to show that even the greatest minds can be wrong sometimes.

(I first learned to program in GW-BASIC)

No, I totally agree with him. But he was talking about unstructured BASIC - not Visual Basic.

When one of the biggest minds in computer science calls teaching a language a criminal offense - that language will be fucked for life. The fact that any Basic still exists is a testament to Microsoft's power over the computer industry. They can outrule Dijkstra FFS.

VB.NET is a structured and OO language that is just as powerful as C#. No doubt about that. But the stigmata of this quote will haunt it forever. Virtually all Visual Basic hate comes from that single quote.

Add in the fact that even Microsoft these days are treating it like a second class language - I wouldn't touch with a 5 foot pole when a language like C# already exists.

The reason I haven't been very active on C9 (or my blog) is that I'm a bit fed up with the entire IT culture, the little fights, the cynicism, the different camps (or should I say tribes), the egos, …

It has taken the fun out of programming for me. My hobby projects are rusting on my hard drive, my desire and drive to create is currently on hold. I try to find my happiness elsewhere now, I've just started my second year learning Italian, and my second cooking course (this time Italian cuisine). I still follow all the trends, still read the blogs, and the twitter-sphere. But I stopped caring or taking sides, it's just not worth it anymore.

Tribalism is human nature, it's in our DNA, refined after tens of thousands of years of constant warfare and natural selection.

Add in tens (or even hundreds) of billions of dollars if one tribe wins over another, and you have the computer industry.

As for myself, I identify with FOSS and Linux tribe then the Microsoft and properitary tribe. Mostly because I think FOSS will be better for society then everything being closed source and unavailable for modification. I don't see any profit incentive for myself if FOSS wins more battles. In fact, I think it might have an overall negative effect on my salary. But I care dearly about the future of technology, and that's the only reason I become a software developer. We still have so much left to do.

Well, maybe not a C# compiler, but the Mono project has a VB.NET compiler written in VB.NET. It's currently missing a lot of features the C# compiler (written in C#) has, partly beacause of lack of demand, and partly because VB.NET is not actually a standard.

No, I totally agree with him. But he was talking about unstructured BASIC

But he claims that anyone who's been taught BASIC has been irreperably damaged. Like I said, I learned to program in GW-BASIC, which is one of the unstructed versions (line numbers, no subroutines). By Dijkstra's reasoning, I would therefore be unable toever learn to program properly because of the bad stuff I'd learned from BASIC. Which, if I do say so myself, it just blatantly untrue.

By contrast, I would argue that if it weren't for BASIC, I wouldn't be a programmer at all. BASIC was available (included with MS-DOS 4). BASIC was easy to learn by trial and error and got you immediate results without working through the whole book.

Sure, the code I wrote had no structure and had variables named a, b, c, but it still pulled me into that world and itdid not do any lasting damage.

No, I totally agree with him. But he was talking about unstructured BASIC

But he claims that anyone who's been taught BASIC has been irreperably damaged. Like I said, I learned to program in GW-BASIC, which is one of the unstructed versions (line numbers, no subroutines). By Dijkstra's reasoning, I would therefore be unable toever learn to program properly because of the bad stuff I'd learned from BASIC. Which, if I do say so myself, it just blatantly untrue.

By contrast, I would argue that if it weren't for BASIC, I wouldn't be a programmer at all. BASIC was available (included with MS-DOS 4). BASIC was easy to learn by trial and error and got you immediate results without working through the whole book.

Sure, the code I wrote had no structure and had variables named a, b, c, but it still pulled me into that world and itdid not do any lasting damage.

I think you are getting a little ahead of yourself there. The more you work in real industry as a software engineer, the more you realise how much you don't really know about proper design patterns and OO.

I started programming in a structured language with no-OO. I thought I was hot sh!t back then, coding up 500 line functions with multiple switch statements. I didn't know what "clean code" and proper OO is, and honestly I don't totally get it yet. I'd be scared to think what would have happened if I used BASIC for years.

No matter what you think you know about design: there is still alot to learn. Even Martin Fowler and company come out with new books and new ideas all the time. It takes years and years of code reviews and constant refactoring to really get how to design a system really well (arugably no one ever really "gets it", but whatever).

Sure maybe you know all of this coming out of college, but I doubt it. No offense bro, just how it is. Not saying Dijkstra is totally right, but you really can not accurately judge yourself at this stage of your career.

The way I interpret the idea is that exposure to BASIC is kind of like lead poisoning.

(1) Age of introduction (younger you are, the more damage it will do)

(2) Sustained exposure (the longer the exposure, the more damage it will do)

(3) Amount of exposure (writing 10 or 20 liners is not as bad as writing 2000 liners in BASIC)

Just like lead poisoning, there is no safe exposure tolerance to BASIC. All the minute amount of lead in the air from decades of leaded gasoline use is killing your brain cells, even little molecules of it - as we speak.

Too much of (1),(2),(3) and you'll probably end up like SpectateSwamp or something. Damn, that might explain it. Or it could be real lead poisoning.

PerfectPhase"This is not war, this is pest control!" - Dalek to Cyberman

All the BASIC languages I grew up with ZX81/BBC/Amiga all had GOSUB-RETURN.

Anyway I am in a way greatful that I started with basic and progressed through c, pascal, c++ etc. I always felt it gave me a much better appreciation for each improvement in the language.

I wonder, if in the future Funtional programing will rule and people will look back and pitty those of us that learned OO first.

I pretty sure the only rule of software development is adapt or die.

As they should. Surely it's kind of difficult to wrap your head around functional programming after being exposed to so much imperative programming. And no I don't mean understand what functional programming is, but actually program non-trivial stuff with something like Haskell. You have to unlearn a lot. We have corrupted by dishonest languages to write dishonest code.